A neighbor has penned a letter of support for Pickleball Billy, who remains behind bars on trespassing charges.
William Leonard Hartig, 78, who has become well known as a USA Pickleball ambassador in The Villages, continues to be held without bond at the Sumter County Detention Center.
His original arrest came after the Massachusetts native was caught on surveillance crossing onto a neighbor’s property in the Hallandale Villas in the Village of St. Charles, according to arrest reports from the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office. Pickleball Billy had been formally banned by a trespass order from the property of the neighbor, a man in his 70s.
After he was released on bond, Pickleball Billy was re-arrested after he came in contact with the same neighbor at their postal station.
Nancy Falknor is Pickleball Billy’s neighbor and recently wrote a letter to the judge in his case. She lauded Pickleball Billy as a man of faith who once saved a neighbor’s life.
She described the problem between Pickleball Billy and the other neighbor as a senseless, long-running feud.
“Seems the neighbor and he cannot get along,” Falknor wrote in the letter. “It’s so sad. The Villages, Friendliest Hometown, neighbors would go to such extreme measures as this. Why couldn’t they come together and reason the problems out? We all have problems and I think these situations are of no harm.”
She asked the judge to reach “a peaceful solution for the neighborhood.”
A jury trial in Hartig’s case had been set for Monday, May 5. However, a continuance has been ordered. His next court date is a status conference set for June 10. He will remain jailed for the foreseeable future.